Is this HPPD?

[ShiGuy]

Hi all,

 

Hope everyone is doing well and is recovering. This post is for anyone who is knowledgeable on HPPD and can help me identify whether my case is HPPD or not.

 

I began smoking weed in my freshmen year of high school (2009/2010) and was never a serious smoker. My most consistent period of smoking was my junior year of high school where I probably smoked on average, once a week. I never really smoked because I truly enjoyed it. It was either because my friends were smoking or to simply get away from my mind. It is important to note that I have had anxiety and OCD problems since the 7th grade and because of this, I would have really bad reactions to weed. This sounds crazy but my weed experiences were probably almost as profound as an LSD experience. All of my friends would be amazed at how high I would get. As I continued to smoke, I probably got more and more anxious and my thoughts more and more abstractly weird but it never bothered me too much. Unfortunately, I began to notice visual changes whilst I was high. My vision would be tilted with the left side higher than the right. Fortunately, this would revert back to normal when I became sober. In August of 2013, I smoked and drank with some friends and came down with most likely a pretty bad fever. It took a couple of days to recover but after this experience, my vision stayed permanently tilted.. I was dumb enough to continue smoking a couple of times for a period of a year but permanently quit weed in July of 2014. During this period, I also continued to drink but cut down a lot in December of 2014 and only drink very occasionally now. However, it seems like whenever I drink or put in any substances in my body (such as caffeine even), my tilted vision gets worse. What also makes my tilted vision worse is stress and anxiety. Another thing to add in addition to the visual changes is that I think I began to have weird abstract thoughts due to weed smoking. I cannot be sure that it was the weed that did this or simply worsening of my anxiety without the influence of weed. Still, my anxiety could have very well got worse due to the bad highs I had. By weird abstract thoughts I mean almost the type of thoughts you would have if you were tripping LSD. For example, maybe when I close my eyes I would see hexagons and maybe Obama's head on a snake's body. I cannot even describe it perfectly, it's all just very weird. This too has been bothering me a lot. I also believe I experience some degree of depersonalization/derealization but definitely not as profound as others on this forum. This is due to my attention mainly being on my tilted vision. 

 

All in all, does my story sound like HPPD and has anyone had visual changes such as tilted vision? Oh and I know visual snow is a common symptom of HPPD and I have that too. However, I had visual snow since I was a little kid (probably in the 6th grade or even younger was when it first began). Therefore, the visual snow was before all of the weed and alcohol and drugs I did. Hence, it seems plausible that the part of my brain that controls my vision is extra delicate. I have also done other drugs such as MDMA (a couple of times; most likely the pure form aka molly), cocaine (little amounts probably three times), Xanax (twice?), Ambien (once), 25i (once; this is something similar to LSD I believe). However, the tilted vision and weird thoughts occurred when I was high and smoking weed. Therefore, I believe all of my issues are as a result of the weed that I smoked. Can anyone please offer their insight? Thanks much! Really appreciate anyone and everyone who took the time out to hear me out. Cheers (: